Ethereum’s core developer have set March 2023 as the provisional date for “Shanghai,” which is Ethereum’s next network upgrade.
According to a report by The Block, at Ethereum Core Devs Meeting #151, which was held on 8 December 2022, a provisional timeline for the completion of the Shanghai upgrade, also known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895, was set. This upgrade will enable users to withdraw their staked funds from the Ethereum blockchain, a feature that is currently not available. According to Cointelegraph, “developers will aim for May or June 2023 to launch the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) 4844 upgrade that will introduce proto-danksharding to the network.”
Around 7:00 a.m. UTC on September 15, Ethereum’s Merge upgrade was completed, which meant that the Ethereum network moved to PoS consensus from the much more energy-hungry Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus.
Before the Merge, here is what an FAQ on Ethereum Foundation’s website was saying about withdrawals:
“Staked ETH, staking rewards to date, and newly issued ETH immediately after The Merge will still be locked on the Beacon Chain without the ability to withdraw.
“Withdrawals are planned for the Shanghai upgrade, the next major upgrade following The Merge. This means that newly issued ETH, though accumulating on the Beacon Chain, will remain locked and illiquid for at least 6-12 months following The Merge.“
Two problems with staking in Ethereum 2.0 are that your stake is locked (unlike in some other PoS networks, such as Cardano) and that currently withdrawals are not allowed.
On 26 November 2022, prominent Bitcoin developer, educator and entrepreneur Jimmy Song decided to share his thoughts on this current lack of stake withdrawal capability in Ethereum 2.0:
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